The Christian life was never meant to be an easy path needing only minimal commitment. Jesus taught that the gate to true discipleship is narrow, and few find it. While salvation is freely given through Christ’s work on the cross, and not based on one’s own good works, it leads nonetheless to rigorous training and transformation resulting in upright living. Many churches today have widened the entrance to attract the crowds, but this compromises the deep discipleship that Jesus and the Apostles established which is aimed to produce righteous living. The Lord’s design involves both grace for salvation and training for godly living—a narrow but life-giving path that produces lasting spiritual fruit.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] In Matthew 7, we have Jesus concluding remarks with regard to the Sermon on the Mount, at least that part of the Sermon on the Mount which was covering the religion of the Old Covenant. So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. For this is the law and the prophets. A couple of things to help us understand this verse is the fact that the Old Testament contains an Old Covenant. An Old Covenant which was God instituted, it was from the Lord, and is a part of our scriptures. Because it is in the Old Testament doesn’t mean that there’s not blessing for us there to read. But here is what is often called the golden rule. And the golden rule in one form or another does appear in lots of different religions. There’s something that has gained quite a lot of recognition that it’s good advice.

[00:01:11] The one difference between how Jesus stated it, of course, was that he put it into the positive. And as you can read in verse 12, so whatever you wish that others would do to you, do this to them. That’s in the positive because most of the other religions have it. Don’t do to other people what you don’t want to do to you. Both are true, but Jesus put it into the positive. And then he summed up and said, this is the law and the prophets. The way that’s the Jewish people of Jesus day referred to the Old Testament was either just to say the law, because it began with Moses and the law. Or they might say the law and the prophets because there was scriptures, prophetic scriptures, coming from the different prophecy ministries. Or sometimes, they said the law, the prophets, and the rioting. And generally speaking, it meant a lot of the Old Testament,

[00:02:10] whether they just said the law, or the law and the prophets, or the law of the prophets, and the writings. But here this golden rule is summing up some of the ethics that Jesus called on, or the Old Testament first, called on people to live out, and Jesus was saying, yes, it’s right. But then he went on further. And he said, in verse 13, by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy

[00:02:41] that leads to destruction, and those who enter it by it are many, for the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life and those who find it are few.” I was reading in my commentary, getting ready to get on to this part for going going through the Gospel of Matthew. And with the help of Leon Morris, read there that this is actually Jesus’ language for talking about discipleship. But it’s talking about a journey picked up, of course,

[00:03:19] in very famous books about pilgrims, who pilgrims progress would be one, who are seeking to travel to the celestial city, which represents heaven, or getting to glory. But that the Christian life is one which isn’t always easy. And the whole burden of the pilgrims’ progress were the difficulties that Pilgrim, whose name was Christian, faced along the way. Here, Jesus says, enter by the narrow gate, meaning there’s a difficulty getting

[00:03:56] in to the true discipleship that will really work. And the gate is wide, that the way is easy that leads to destruction. And what Leon Morris was elaborating is that when it comes to discipleship, if you’ve got an easy discipleship, you’ve got the wrong one. Because it’s a narrow gate, and people find it difficult to get there, but you’re meant to strive to get into the narrow gate.

[00:04:29] And discipleship has that nature in it that is not necessarily easy, and it’s not found by many. That’s how he finishes this, about the narrow and the way is hard, and it leads to life. And those who find it are few. We’ve been having, in the different home groups I go to, there’s different, good things about all of them, but the one that I go to on Friday night has, in recent times, been going through the Book of Titus. And in going through the Book of Titus,

[00:05:03] we’ve sort of hit on the question about whether or not we should be shallow or deep, whether or not we should be organized in the church. And Titus, who’s an apostolic delegate, opinion because he goes on Paul’s behalf and carries Paul’s authority. He’s told to go and to this island and he’s to go and fix things up in the churches and to appoint elders in the churches. That’s what he was asked to do. And when you look and see how the early church was formed, it was formed with there being a basis of authority that came from the apostles and the prophets. If you want to know where I get that from in the scriptures Ephesians two and verse 20 says that the

[00:05:57] foundation stone is Jesus but on either side of the foundation stone are two big rocks in the picture of the metaphor being used by the Apostle and one’s the Apostles and the others are prophets. Now these are the New Testament prophets with the New Testament apostles, because in that same book of Ephesians where it speaks about Jesus and his leadership from heaven, he sent it up on high, and he gave gifts to men, and the gifts are the five-fold apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher. And the way the actual structure of the language is that the final two can be put together because they don’t have quite the same emphasis as separate as the others do. I won’t go into the detail, but it leaves scholars an opening to say that sometimes it’s a pastor who pastor by his teaching. And

[00:06:58] when you track down about elders, and Paul don’t forget as an apostle met with the elders from Ephesus, the tasks that he gave to them to do as elders was pastoring and teaching. There is in the setup of different denominations varied ways that churches seek to achieve what Jesus has given us to do in the structure of the church, and it is the heritage of the Baptist Church to recognize that elders include those who are pastors and teachers, and some might even be ones who pastor by their teaching. What that means is that the elders are not a different set from the pastors, but the elders are given the task of pastoring and some of them to pastor by their teaching. Now in the structure of the Baptist Church, we recognize the set of people who have

[00:07:59] been called of God to what the Apostle Paul was explaining to the elders that they were to do. And they are the ministry. It’s one of the events of the Baptist Union of Queensland where a member of this church, Frank Stone, the Reverend Frank Stone was a member of this church. Anybody here remember the stones? Just let me see if there’s anyone left. He’s passed away now. You don’t remember the stones? Let me see. I can’t find any oldies to put on the spot. Well, Frank Stone was the general secretary, which was the language used back then of the general superintendent. The person who occupies that role for our Baptist Union has got the name of, let’s see if I can remember it, he’s the one who is the leader of the movement. They’ve called it a movement. I don’t think it is a movement. But it’s nice to call it a movement. And that’s the same person.

[00:09:04] But the person who is heading up the Baptist Union was a member of this church, and he addressed the assembly of all the Baptist Churches on the issue as to whether or not you should have elders. The reason being is that there was people coming in from other denominations who are familiar with eldership rule, who would want to have elders. And his point was that we do have elders. They are the pastors and amongst those who do pastoring there’s might be someone who pastors by their teaching I’m doing it to you right now and that’s why in our understanding of how a church to be organised we have what is called a pastorate and sitting with me are elders and also others who have specific roles. So the pastorate includes the treasurer, the Secretary, two elders and I think we have an Assistant Secretary

[00:10:02] who is Nick and those people meet regularly on the day-to-day things that either be decided but particularly the people things. And in the report that we brought to the Church at our annual General Business meeting just recently Was the fact that that pastorate has been busy interviewing different people and their portfolios to work in the church because that’s what a pastorate does. You are living in, you’re coming to, you’re attending a pastorate led church. We also have a, in our organisation, we have got a council which doesn’t meet so often but where there’s going to be bigger decisions to make like if we were to sell the church Like if we wanted to decide to air condition it. I hope you’re enjoying it this morning

[00:10:55] It’s rather good air-conditioning. Can I say because it’s silent I’ve been to churches where the air-conditioning makes it hard to hear In fact, I had my fears of this air-conditioning and I, you know, that that’s what we get And I might as well give up preaching when everybody is going like this and not listening. But anyway, we have got a decision to make, to take to the members’ meeting, which the council being a far more representative body from all the people of different portfolios that are also elected, that makes it good for making those big decisions. If I were to retire and put in my resignation, it would fall to the council as the representative body to search for another person or other people to come to be the pastors. And in that search, what you’d be doing is seeing to obey the scriptures that there should

[00:11:59] be elders in every church. And what Frank Stone had to say is to beware of changing to eldership rule because the scriptures don’t give a rule of all the persons just as elders who are not the pastors, but people who make decisions behind the scenes. And it is one of the struggles of different denominations to know how somehow to have leadership but not let it be in the hands of people who then rule it from the point of view of an administration point because it’s to be a pastor that leads a church and particularly to lead it by the teaching. Now it was wonderful in that Friday night home group because the book of Titus gave us opportunity to see how this was spelled out.

[00:12:58] And I’m jumping a bit with my places, but can you go with me please to Titus 2 and verses 11 to 14. And so a couple of weeks in a row, we’ve been looking at this spot which speaks to the fact of there being leadership in the church and the purpose of the leadership being toward, I think, discipleship. And verse 11 it says, for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all, the word is actually men, but it probably translated as says all people because, anyway, I won’t go into that, but the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in this present age, waiting for the blessed hope, that’s the return of Jesus,

[00:14:01] the blessed hope, the appearing and the glory of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own. Now I hope you can hear in that definition of Jesus and why he came to the world, the salvation that he brought and available to all people was done because of the great loving kindness of God and the word for grace, it’s chief meaning, although there’s quite a broad spectrum of aspects of the meaning of the word grace of God, but the chief meaning is loving kindness and if you find in your scriptures, there’s a lot of them in the Old Testament in particular, it says the loving kindness of God, it will be one of the Hebrew words that’s translated from the meaning of grace, but the grace of God appeared, his loving

[00:15:02] kindness to make salvation accessible to humanity, that’s what it’s saying, it doesn’t mean everybody ends up getting saved, it means salvation is something that the human race has had available to them. Training us to renounce ungodliness and the word training actually has got the little word pudo in it and you know the little pudos have already left to do Sunday school downstairs. It’s where children are trained and those of us who are parents know that training isn’t only just telling information. Training is sometimes a paddle whack on the tail. Training sometimes, I remember one person in the church, little kid was mucking up and his dad got him over his shoulder and as the father carried him out the door to deal with his misbehavior the boy cried out, help, help! But, that’s training. Training is necessary and where there are

[00:16:07] families that don’t train as in discipline, discipleship, your listening disciplined discipleship, then something doesn’t happen that should happen and you get to someone who goes off the tracks. And we’re dealing with a passage here in Matthew, don’t leave it on the one that I’m on, but the passage in Matthew which is talking about the fact that the type of training that’s necessary to get people who actually live out good living is something that’s narrow at the gate, something that is rigorous and few people find it. One of the great temptations that comes to churches at every age but it comes to our church our age in particular it has done, is to water down the entrance point. And when

[00:16:57] you water down the entrance point you might get people happy with the programs, they don’t come out like the passage says they’re meant to. One of the features of a church that has a discipleship program is that it gets people who last the distance. I became alerted to this when having travelled overseas to be a student. There was a disagreement amongst a lot of the professors as to exactly what was the gospel and to exactly what is the role of the preaching. And particularly as this was in America, there were churches available that you could go along and be present at, which really had a lot to offer in terms of the happy atmosphere and the clapping and the joining in. But the same thing, you discovered that the morality of the people of the church had left behind this standard, had left behind Jesus’ standard, where there

[00:18:11] wasn’t really much successful discipline actually happening. And churches have a choice. And some people go overboard at that and make lots of rules that that’s not good either. But other churches, in order to get the crowds, have lowered the level and they don’t have a narrow gate. And they don’t have the need to strive. They don’t exhibit the fact that there’s few that find it. But who do you listen to? Will you listen to Jesus? Will you listen to the Apostle Paul? The grace of God, this is Paul, has appeared bringing salvation available to all people, the salvation. But it’s including not only get in the door and your sins are forgiven, you’re going to heaven, but it includes to be trained. And it uses the word that means children’s training from bubber up, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions are we wait for? Waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing and the glory of our great God and

[00:19:28] Savior Jesus Christ. And one of the signs that you can understand that you’re not in a church with much discipleship is that they don’t talk much about the judgment or Jesus return. But we are because we know we’ve been forgiven and because we know we’re on the road of sanctification that helps us to grow in our way we live. That the coming of Jesus Christ is not something to be afraid of, but it’s something that is the blessed hope. Because when he comes, we’re going to hear him say, well done, good and faithful servant. Waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession, who are zealous for good works. Now, very well led was our Friday night home group to ask the question, is our salvation to be one? I forget exactly how I was worded, but is our salvation is the one which is apart from works.

[00:20:47] It’s one of those trick questions because the first part of salvation is indeed apart from works because we can’t do enough good works to make up for our bad ones. And any salvation that’s based on you performing to earn it and deserve it is not from God. Our salvation is provided by somebody else’s good works, Jesus. And for his being prepared to go to the cross and there to bear our sins. And by the bearing of our sins and suffering that separation from the Father, he cried out, remember he’s the God man. He’s son of God, but he’s also Jesus born in Bethlehem’s manger because he’s human too. And on the cross he cried, my God, human to God, my God, my God, that’s the Father, how you have forsaken me because he bore the punishment for our sins. And there are no works that you have to do to get in the door. That doesn’t mean that the door is wide open for anybody to trample him without much understanding. Rather it means that you start the

[00:22:09] progress of pilgrim by going down, if you read pilgrim’s progress, this narrow little stretch of road that led to the cross. And when he knelt before the cross, his burden of sin fell off his back down a big hole and he begins to mark the walk of Christian toward the celestial city. And that salvation that Jesus’ death has earned for us is to be able to participate on the walk in the highway of holiness, to walk toward the celestial city of glory, to be in expectation of Jesus’ return. That’s a part of what Jesus has done. And a part of it is that we end up doing good works. And here it says, declare these people who are possession of the blessing who are zealous for good works. So no, salvation is not apart from good works, it’s just that your justification is not on your good works, it’s based on Jesus’ good works. And it has the fruit that there comes about in your life, a demonstration that something has changed. Thank God the gospel that he’s given

[00:23:27] us is not one that is just a tag on you, terrible sinner, but you’re forgiven, give you a tick, off you go. No, the salvation that’s been given to us is one that makes us zealous for good works. Something that we brought out in our home group. And there were members there with different backgrounds, but the fellow that sat next to me talked about how his Anglican church he went to was one that didn’t really have the gospel. And they got a new pastor who understood the gospel, and he got in the door, the narrow door. And he learned that this is something that was just to of discipleship. And some of the best discipleship things come out of some Anglican churches when they’re evangelical Anglicans, so let’s not just think we Baptists have got it all. Sometimes you’ll find that the different denominations have different periods of time when they really find the truth of the gospel. And they find the the truth of the fact that discipleship is a part of

[00:24:37] our salvation. Discipleship is what our church offers, and I’m afraid to say that the gate is narrow, but it’s true, I better say it, and the few there are who want it in this generation. But it’s not that we need to worry about being just a few, because the results are large. I’m going to continue in other mornings to explain to you a little bit about discipleship from the New Testament, from Jesus in particular. It’s a very much bigger topic than most people understand. The Great Commission in Matthew’s Gospel reads, going into all the world and make disciples of all nations. And the equivalent one in Mark’s Gospel says, going into all the world, it says to preach the gospel to every creature, every person. And the way that you make disciples is by the gospel being sown at depth. And that was a bit of a revolutionary understanding for me. I’m going to go in other days to tell

[00:26:00] you a bit more about it, but one of the fruits of suddenly realizing that told me how I was to preach to the Christians. I was to disciple them at depth. And the first thing I did in that church in Ryde, it wasn’t only the personal discipling we did, was to begin a series through the Book of Romans. It took a several couple of years. And as we went through the Book of Romans, sometimes I gave an invitation. And of the people who came forward, one of them he was there at this last reunion thing we had. But he was one of our youth leaders. And I was a bit surprised that the youth leader came forward. I would have hoped he was more secure, and would lead to make that response. When I took the ones that had responded out to the room to counsel him, I said to him, why did you come forward? And he said, the book of Romans has got me. The teaching of the disciple at depth was what got him. You know, when we first

[00:27:09] came to this church, somebody who’d been on the receiving end of this discipleship was hiding my daughter, because she had made her decision at an early age, but she’d also learned the discipling thing that I was experimenting on her. And she made a list of verses from the book of Romans, and had all the young people, she got a nicely done out thing with shiny over it, you know, what do you call that, and gave them out to them. And they were to stick it on the inside part of the toilet doors. So if you were a visitor to the house and you went to our toilet as you shut the door and sat down, you would read Romans 3, 23, For all have sinned, and are full and short of the glory of God, Romans 6 23, The wages have sinned is death, etc. And it was key verses through the book of Romans. We She helped the young people to be discipled at depth, but you know what happened to Heidi

[00:28:14] is that amongst the broader Christian community, she found that people criticised her because it was too deep, it was too, in their opinion, strict. They formed groups who were separate and Heidi found that in the particular ones at the university that she would want to have joined, that was a difficulty because they were a set who had a different drum beat. We’ve stuck to our guns and they’re the guns that bring the victory and we have discipleship as the chief programme of our church and Jesus here is talking about the difference between the old covenant and the new and he’s not lessening the old covenant, he’s got lot to offer but he’s saying that in the new teaching that he has that you ought to strive to enter into the narrow gate for it’s difficult to get going there.

[00:29:18] It’s difficult but it’s worth it and then he says, few there be that find it and I would rather have my children, my young people, our church trained under the deeper training of discipleship and it’s elaborating about that that I’m now continuing as we go through the Gospel of Matthew, it’s not unusual through the Gospel of Matthew because that’s why there are the 28 or so chapters of Matthew. Because the Gospel is not just something that you can make simple and get in the door, and that’s that. It took Matthew 28 chapters, all the Gospels have a number of chapters and they differ, but I want to say that if they needed all those chapters, we do too. Let’s have a prayer.

[00:30:16] Heavenly Father we thank you in Jesus’ name for the way that you work and we praise you Father for Jesus and his foresight and his teaching and how he talked about there being an arrow gate, Lord, it’s sort of a bit off-putting to be frank with you to hear Jesus saying that it’s hard to get in, but Father, Lord, may we be at least those who find that door and find what it is to walk with Jesus and know the fruit of discipleship in our lives, whereby we do find ourselves having the behaviour that’s changed. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.